Google removes links in response to EU ruling

News outlets began receiving a barrage of notifications this week that past articles have been removed from Google search results in order for the search company to comply with a European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling in May.

The ECJ ruled that Google is subject to EU data protection rules, and must remove links to personal information that is deemed to be “irrelevant, outdated, or otherwise inappropriate”. The company made a form available in May for citizens to request that links be taken down. The company says it is now getting around 1,000 requests a day.

This week British media companies such as The Guardian, the BBC and the Daily Mail received notices informing them that links to some past articles would be deleted on the search site.

“We regret to inform you that we are no longer able to show the following pages from your website in response to certain searches on European versions of Google,” the company wrote. It has so far received more than 70,000 requests to remove internet links.

However a number of links to The Guardian articles that were removed earlier this week were reinstated yesterday, following objections from the newspaper.

One of the removed links is an article by BBC economic editor Robert Peston from October 2007. The identity of the person who requested that the link be removed is not known, but it is believed to be someone who posted a comment on the article. The comments section has since closed, and the person is unable to delete the comment himself. Only searches using the name of the commenter will have the link removed.

But Neelie Kroes, European commissioner for the digital agenda, believes the removal was an overreaction. Ryan Heath, a spokesperson for Kroes, told the BBC that he could not see a “reasonable public interest” in the link being taken down. He said that the removals may be a “tactical” move by Google, which may be over-complying for fear of running afoul of the ruling or being deliberately overzealous in applying it in order to pressure politicians to change the law.

“Google clearly has a strong interest in making sure that they’re able to work with whatever the legal requirements are, so they position themselves in a particular way over that,” he said.

France is the source of the highest number of removal requests received by Google – around 14,000.

Peter Baron, Google’s director of communications for Europe, denied that the company is being overzealous in applying the law. “[The BBC case] was very much in line with the ruling, it was an ordinary member of the public” he told the BBC.

“These are difficult judgements, we have to balance a whole range of things,” he said. “We believe it’s important to have a public debate about this.”